BitKeeper licence critic

[Wolfgang Jährling]

Hi!

Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha <strange at nsk.yi.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 10:10:51PM +0100, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
> > According to my knowledge vi (at least some implementations)
> > and mozilla are free.
> So is Linux. And I'm not sure about vi, I could only find a draft of
> a licence that wasn't sure about being GPL compatible.

Not being GPL-compatible does not mean it's non-free. And there
definitely are free implementations of vi. For example, vile is availble
under the term of the GNU GPL.

> Yet, my point was that Mozilla is ported to run on Windows. Should Free
> software developers do that?

If you are forced to use MS-Windows, it's a good thing to have at least
some free applications available.

> Shouldn't we just stopping using Mozilla?

That's an entirely different situation. Mozilla is developed on
MS-Windows for the purpose of making it run on MS-Windows, but I don't
think that Linux will run on BitKeeper soon. :)

<off-topic>

> > My biggest reasons for not staying with Linux are technical.
> And the biggest reasons for Linux being widely used are technical, as
> are the biggest reasons for Hurd not being widely used nor developed upon...

I consider both statements to be wrong.

The biggest reason for GNU/Linux being widely used is good marketing by
GNU/Linux distributors (which I don't consider to be a bad thing).

The biggest reason for the Hurd not being widely used and (especially)
developed upon is that everyone is thinking "let's wait until they have
finished it" while too few people are actually working on improving it.
Thus the reason is lazyness.

</off-topic>

Cheers,
GNU/Wolfgang

-- 
Wolfgang Jährling <wolfgang at pro-linux.de> `-:._ "Omnis enim res, quae dando
Debian GNU/Linux user && Debian GNU/Hurd user  `-:. non deficit, dum habetur
Hurd Hacking Guide - http://stdio.cjb.net/hhg.html )  et non datur, nondum
www.debian.org || www.gnu.org || hurd.gnu.org _,-:' habetur, quomodo habenda
["Accelerate your PC - with 9.81 m/s^2."] ,-:'   est." --> fsfeurope.org <--